Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Idiot America

Genius creates shitty software, and learns of his mistake. So what does he do?

Concerned that the analysis using CacheBack could be wrong and that a woman’s life might be at stake, Mr. Bradley went back to the drawing board and redesigned a portion of his software to get a more accurate picture.

He found both reports were inaccurate (although NetAnalysis came up with the correct result), in part because it appears both types of software had failed to fully decode the entire file, due to its complexity. His more thorough analysis showed that the Web site sci-spot.com was visited only once — not 84 times.

Mr. Bradley, fearing that jurors were being given false information based on his data, contacted the police and the prosecution the weekend of June 25. He asked Sergeant Stenger about the discrepancy, and the sergeant said he was aware of it, Mr. Bradley said. He waited to see if prosecutors would correct the record. They did not.

“They needed to get that right,” Mr. Bradley said.

If Mr. Bradley was so concerned a woman's life was at stake, why didn't HE CONTACT THE WOMAN'S ATTORNEY ABOUT HIS MISTAKE? And why didn't the New York Times ASK HIM WHY HE DIDN'T?